US EditionTropical Forest Loss Falls 36% in 2025, But Fires and Farming Persist
Researchers said 4.3 million hectares were lost, with agriculture still the main driver and fires accounting for 42% of destruction worldwide.
- On Wednesday, researchers reported global tropical primary forest loss fell 36% in 2025, though the world still lost 4.3 million hectares—an area larger than Switzerland—leaving countries far off track from 2030 goals.
- Brazil's forest loss dropped 41% from 2024, its lowest rate on record, reflecting stronger environmental enforcement since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in 2023 and relaunched an anti-deforestation framework.
- Fires drove 42% of global tree cover loss in 2025, with researchers warning that climate change and land clearing have created a "dangerous new normal," turning seasonal disturbances into a "near-permanent state of emergency."
- Despite recent gains, countries are deforesting 70% more than needed to meet the 2030 goal; Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch, said "Achieving this goal in the coming years will not be easy."
- Rising risks in 2026 include a potential El Niño, which could push temperatures higher, while Indonesia recorded a 14% increase in forest loss last year, largely due to agricultural expansion and food estate programs.
49 Articles
49 Articles
In the past year, a little less tropical primary forest has been lost worldwide than in 2024.
Tropical forest loss still 11 football fields a minute – or Denmark per year
The pace of tropical forest destruction slowed in 2025 after record losses the year before but remained at worrying levels equivalent to 11 football fields per minute, researchers said Wednesday. The world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical primary rainforest last year, down 36 per cent from 2024, said researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. “A drop of this scale in a single ye…
Global Forest Loss Drops 36% in 2025 as Brazil Leads Decline
Key Points — The global tropical forest loss fell 36 percent in 2025 versus the 2024 record, according to new University of Maryland GLAD Lab data released Wednesday April 29 by the World Resources Institute (WRI) on the Global Forest Watch platform. Total tropical primary forest loss in 2025: 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) […] The post Global Forest Loss Drops 36% in 2025 as Brazil Leads Decline appeared first on The Rio Times.
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